Gunmen opened fire on a synagogue, at least two churches and a police post in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan on Sunday, killing at least six police officers and a priest, the local interior ministry said. Killed in attack on city.
Russia’s state news agency quoted local law enforcement officials as saying that more than a dozen police officers were injured in two seemingly coordinated attacks. The shootings took place in Dagestan’s capital Makhachkala and Derbent, a city on the border with Azerbaijan.
As of Sunday evening, it was unclear how the total casualties were distributed in the two cities, but Derbent police officials said gunmen opened fire on a synagogue and a church, killing at least one police officer and another Injuried.
Russia’s state news agency released footage of a Derbent synagogue being engulfed in flames. Local police said in a statement that synagogues and churches had been “burned down.”
In Makhachkala, a sprawling city on the Caspian Sea coast, gunmen opened fire on a street that is also home to a local synagogue. Gunmen were on the loose in the city, shooting and forcing people out of their cars, according to video released by Dagestan’s Interior Ministry.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, the equivalent of the FBI, said it had opened a terrorism investigation into the attack.
Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic and home to a Jewish population, has experienced severe violence for at least three decades. But since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October, ethnic and religious tensions in the republic have worsened.
In October, an angry mob stormed Makhachkala airport looking for Jewish passengers on a flight from Israel. The attack shocked Russia’s Jews and drew condemnation from the Israeli government.
Dagestan President Sergei Melikov said in a statement that Sunday’s attack appeared aimed at “destabilizing the public situation.”
Local police said at least four gunmen were killed by law enforcement officers. With some gunmen still at large, police said they had blocked the entrance to Makhachkala.
Neither the number nor the identities of the attackers were immediately disclosed.
The shooting came just months after four terrorists attacked a major concert hall in a Moscow suburb, killing 145 people in gunfire and fire. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack; U.S. officials blamed it on ISIS-K, an offshoot of the group.
